House Report Is Critical of Chair Khan’s Administration of FTC

On October 31, 2024, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability (“Committee”) released its staff report (“Report”) entitled “The Federal Trade Commission Under Chair Lina Khan: Undue Biden-Harris White House Influence and Sweeping Destruction of Agency Norms.”

The Report contains the results of the Committee’s investigation into Chair Lina Khan’s administration of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As part of its investigation, the Committee issued various requests for documents and information and conducted numerous transcribed interviews with top FTC officials.

It is unclear whether the Report had bipartisan support, but according to the Report, the Committee concluded that Chair Khan has “abused her authority at the agency, trampling on the due process rights of regulated parties, upending the rule of law, and violating ethics standards she is bound to uphold.”

Some of the “Key Findings” in the Report assert that Chair Khan has:

• swept aside principles, practices, and policies of merger review;
• spearheaded partisan efforts to remodel U.S. antitrust authorities in the image of Europe;
• orchestrated wholesale changes in FTC rulemaking practices and policies; and
• sidelined career FTC staff, collapsed their morale, and triggered a mass exodus of critical employees.

Chair Khan’s term expired this past September. The findings in the Report may play a role in Chair Khan’s future at the FTC given the upcoming change in administration.

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